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Overview

The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize when it was first published in 1918, The Magnificent Ambersons chronicles the changing fortunes of three generations of an American dynasty. The protagonist of Booth Tarkington's great historical drama is George Amberson Minafer, the spoiled and arrogant grandson of the founder of the family's magnificence. Eclipsed by a new breed of developers, financiers, and manufacturers, this pampered scion begins his gradual descent from the midwestern aristocracy to the working class. Today The Magnificent Ambersons is best known through the 1942 Orson Welles movie, but as the critic Stanley Kauffmann noted, "It is high time that [the novel] appear again, to stand outside the force of Welles's genius, confident in its own right." "The Magnificent Ambersons is perhaps Tarkington's best novel," judged VanWyck Brooks. "[It is] a typical story of an American family and townthe great family that locally ruled the roost and vanished virtually in a day as the town spread and darkened into a city. This novel no doubt was a permanent page in the social history of the United States, so admirably conceived and written was the tale of the Amber-sons, their house, their fate and the growth of the community in which they were submerged in the end." Booth Tarkington (1869-1946), a prolific writer who achieved overnight success with his first novel, The Gentleman from Indiana (1899), is perhaps best remembered as the author of the popular Penrod adventures and Seventeen (1916). He was awarded a second Pulitzer Prize for the novel Alice Adams (1921).

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About the Author

Booth Tarkington (1869-1946) was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams.

A veteran of stage and screen, Peter Berkrot's career spans four decades, and his voice can be heard on television, radio, video games, and documentaries. He has been nominated for an Audie Award and has received a number of AudioFile Earphones Awards and starred reviews.

Editorial Reviews

Though not out of print, this latest offering from Bantam is the least expensive edition currently available. The 1919 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel portrays the decline of the superrich Amberson family, who act as a metaphor for the old society that crumbled after the Industrial Revolution. All fiction collections should own a copy, and all video collections should include Orson Welles's 1942 film version.

Library Journal

Coleman contributes significantly to a form of entertainment largely neglected by scholars. He provides a comprehensive view of magic, focusing on its history, psychology, techniques, and aesthetics. The work covers histories of magic, bibliographic sources on the principles of psychology and showmanship which separate the master conjurer from the amateur, manuals on the execution of magic, bibliographic materials defending the artistic status of magic; the aesthetic features of the art, and selected biographies and autobiographies of renowned magicians from the 19th c. to the present. **** BCL3 endorses this American classic. IU Press reprints it now in paper (not seen) at $9.95, and in hardcovers (poorly adhesive bound--merely the paper edition with a case applied). The printing is good and large, the paper is alkaline. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"An admirable study of character and of American life." —New York Times

New York Times

"An admirable study of character and of American life." New York Times